This just in, lady and gent readers: Oprah has just chosen Cormac McCarthy’s The Road as the latest addition to her book club—and scored big points with this editor. McCarthy remains one of my favorite discoveries from grad school. Notoriously press-shy (there’s no way in hades he’ll appear on Oprah), the writer is not known for seeing the more honorable side of humanity (see his brutal anti-Western, Blood Meridian).

An LJ Best Book of 2006, The Road continues in that vein, describing with macabre elegance “a devastated country where food is scarce and everyone becomes a scavenger, ” according to our review by Stephen Morrow. While I haven’t read it (it’s sitting on the floor, next to my bed), methinks ole Winfrey isn’t so much in a pessimistic mood as moved, simply, by McCarthy’s ability to etch beauty in despair. I have to wonder if her demographic will go along for the ride (though as my colleague Wilda Williams pointed out, the book has already been a best seller), but here’s to disseminating quality literature.